God’s Word says the following about false teachers,
“But these people blaspheme all that they do not understand, and they are destroyed by all that they, like unreasoning animals, understand instinctively.” Jude 1:10
Do you want to know what Christian love looks like at Hillsong Church? Spiritual leader/CEO of Hillsong Church, Brian Houston was not impressed as to how he was represented in A Current Affair’s recent report.
Hillsong: The multi-million dollar “crazy cult”
Which “tabloid trash” do you believe?
Brian Houston in damage control… again… and again…and again.
“Tabloid trash” exposing Hillsong of lying?
It looks as though secular media are now reporting on the conduct of Hillsong’s spiritual leader.
The Sydney Morning Herald reports,
A Current Affair versus Hillsong: the coffee challenge
It was a Goliath and Goliath story. Channel Nine’s nightly current affairs program versus Australia’s best known mega-church, head to head, in the Twitter arena.
A Current Affair last week aired a 16-minute special report detailing explosive revelations that the controversial Hillsong Church made a lot of money but, like every other church in Australia, paid no tax.
Hillsong was making a concert movie set to rake in millions of dollars tax free. Parishioners regularly gave up to 10 per cent of their income in a practice known as tithing. The church was making it so easy to collect tax free dollars through tithing that it was even developing a giving app.
ACA said the church had not responded to requests for comment, a claim denied by Hillsong in a statement the next day that called the segment “tabloid trash”.
A day after that, Hillsong founder Brian Houston laid down a boldfaced challenge to ACA reporter Ben McCormack.
@benmccormack9 Hey.. How about coming to have a coffee with me one day? You got the guts to do that? Just you and me.
The proposed coffee date sounded more like the pastoral equivalent of “Do you wanna take this outside?”
McCormack wasn’t backing down.
@benmccormack9 Hey.. How about coming to have a coffee with me one day? You got the guts to do that? Just you and me.
@BrianCHouston love to meet. Why not do an interview on camera & answer some questions too? You got the guts to do that?
Houston shot back:
@BrianCHouston love to meet. Why not do an interview on camera & answer some questions too? You got the guts to do that?
@BenMcCormack9 The Q’s are not the issue. It’s your skewered editing & underhanded tactics that are the problem. So no..!
McCormack repeated his offer of an interview before Houston repeated his mano-e-mano cappuccino challenge. McCormack suggested that, like Hillsong followers, the ACA team “lived to give”.
A bitter stalemate ensued.
On Monday, not content with having had the last word only once, McCormack tweeted:
@BenMcCormack9 well my offer of a coffee with no hidden recording or cameras stands. It’s not as though ACA is known for its credibility!!
@BrianCHouston “credibility”?? Hillsong issuing false hysterical misleading press statements. It’s you with the credibility problem Brian.
Houston may be frantically trying to come up with his own put-down. But maybe he has taken another tack to win this stoush.
As he tweeted the day before it began:
Love is a very compelling argument!!
Source: By Patrick Begley, Sydney Morning Herald, A Current Affair versus Hillsong: the coffee challenge, http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/tv-and-radio/a-current-affair-versus-hillsong-the-coffee-challenge-20150427-1muarj.html, Published 27/04/2015. (Accessed 27/04/2015.)
Does Brian Houston’s response to the ACA report, represent the actions of a godly shepherd or are we seeing the responses exposing the behaviour of a false teacher.
“The saying is trustworthy: If anyone aspires to the office of overseer, he desires a noble task. Therefore an overseer must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, sober-minded, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, not a drunkard, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money. He must manage his own household well, with all dignity keeping his children submissive, for if someone does not know how to manage his own household, how will he care for God’s church? He must not be a recent convert, or he may become puffed up with conceit and fall into the condemnation of the devil. Moreover, he must be well thought of by outsiders, so that he may not fall into disgrace, into a snare of the devil.” 1 Timothy 3: 1-7
Categories: Hillsong